>That looks like a great book, I'll have to check it out!

Honestly, I wasn't all that impressed with the novel. The characters were rather two-dimensional and the plot was somewhat muddled.

That said, its depiction of a corporatist/authoritarian society incorporates some of the tropes (rewriting history, mass market influencing/propaganda, redefining "good" and "bad", demonizing the "other" etc.) included in 1984 and Brave New World (BNW), but in a far right wing context. Which, as I mentioned, is more apropos to current circumstance than are the left wing "utopias" depicted in 1984 and BNW.

As such, while I don't discourage you from reading The Space Merchants (or its 1984 sequel, The Merchants' War -- which I haven't read), I'm not saying it's a fabulous piece of literature. Pohl[0][2] has written much better stuff, with similar cynicism but significantly better plotting and character development and takes on technology (cf. Heechee Saga[1] -- which I highly recommend -- and others).

In any case, I agree with your assessment of BNW WRT today, but with a far right wing dystopic bent rather than a far left wing dystopic one -- hence my reference to The Space Mechants.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederik_Pohl

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heechee_Saga

[2] Pohl was, as were many mid 20th century Sci-Fi (and other) authors, alarmed by the rapid population growth after World War II, especially as Malthus[3] was widely read at the time and we had not yet seen the fruits of the widespread agriculture technology deployment of the 20th century (Green Revolution[4]).

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Essay_on_the_Principle_of_P...

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Revolution

Edit: Clarified prose. Added footnotes for more detail.